Lignocellulosic material possesses many good characteristics and has been utilized widely in our daily life since ancient time. Lignocellulosic material is defined as wood products, furniture, wooden objects, wood composites, wood-based cultural relics, paper and paper board, paper-based materials, paper-based cultural relices, bamboo products, bamboo-based cultural relics. Wood composed of cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin, not only provides a good nutritional source for microbes and insects but also a suitable habitat because of its hydrophilic functional group and porous property. Under warm and humid climatic conditions in the world, lignocellulosic material is very easy to be attacked by living creatures, especially various fungi, causing huge impact on economy and natural resource loss.
In order to extend the servicelife of lignocellulosic products, various preservatives have been developed for treating lignocellulosic material. Due to the elevation of environmental awareness, most of the widely used preservatives could not meet users' expectation. A great preservative, chromated copper arsenate (CCA) compounds, is under strict regulation of production and application in many countries due to its heavy metal content such as chromium and arsenate which are human carcinogens as well as environmental pollutants. Currently, most alternative preservatives of CCA still use heavy metal copper (copper-organic mixture) for its anti-microorganism activity, such as alkaline copper quaternary ammonium compounds (ACQ), or ammoniacal copper azole (CuAz) compounds. Although the heavy metal of these compounds is less toxic, the impact to our environment still comes along with its waste. It all adds up to the processing cost eventually. These alternative preservatives of CCA also have some disadvantages such as highly corrosive to metal equipments. Besides, some strains of fungi causing wood damage are highly tolerant to copper. Therefore, the latest preservatives still cannot inhibit lignocellulosic material decay completely.
In order to eliminate the disadvantages of current preservatives such as non-environmental friendliness and inability to inhibit copper tolerant fungi, this invention provides an environmental friendly method and composition to inhibit lignocellulosic material decay caused by fungal infection.